10 killed by Turkish avalanche

By SUZAN FRASER, The Associated Press
| 12:02 p.m.Jan. 25, 2009

The bodies of avalanche victims lie in the snow as army officers and rescue workers discuss trying to find possible survivors after an avalanche killed at least 10 people as they hiked on Mount Zigana (2,200-meter) in Gumushane province in northeastern Turkey, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2009. The hikers, members of a mountaineering club, were walking to Mount Zigana when snow crashed down on them. (AP Photo/Zafer Sel, Anatolia)
— AP

The bodies of avalanche victims lie in the snow as army officers and rescue workers discuss trying to find possible survivors after an avalanche killed at least 10 people as they hiked on Mount Zigana (2,200-meter) in Gumushane province in northeastern Turkey, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2009. The hikers, members of a mountaineering club, were walking to Mount Zigana when snow crashed down on them. (AP Photo/Zafer Sel, Anatolia)
/ AP

ANKARA, Turkey 
An avalanche slammed into a group of Turkish hikers on a trip to a remote mountain plateau on Sunday, dragging them more than 1,640 feet (500 meters) into a valley and fatally burying 10.

The members of a skiing and mountaineering club were taking part in an annual winter sports celebration on 7,200-foot (2,200-meter) Mount Zigana. Seventeen were hiking single-file when the avalanche swept into them.

"We looked up and there was nowhere to run. The snow took us and dragged us along," 61-year-old Kasim Keles told reporters from his hospital bed.

"The snow dragged me down into a valley before it stopped," Keles said. "My right hand was stuck beneath me, with my left hand I cleared my face; I began to breathe and called for help."

A fellow hiker who escaped unharmed dug Keles out of the snow by hand.

Faruk Ozak, Turkey's minister in charge of public works and housing who visited the site, said 10 hikers died on the mountain. Two of the hikers were hospitalized, while five walked away unharmed, he said.

Military and private mountain rescue teams assisted by sniffer dogs carried out a search in case others were trapped beneath the snow. Rescue workers could be seen probing with long rods and digging through several feet (meters) of snow with shovels until sunset, when the search was called off for the day.

Television footage showed soldiers and villagers struggling through the snow to carry a person lying on a makeshift stretcher.

"We were walking and before we realized what was going on, the avalanche came on us," Ural Ayar, one of the survivors, told NTV television by telephone. "The snow dragged our friends along and unfortunately they were buried."

The Zigana festival was meant to attract skiers to the small, mainly cross-country ski resort some 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the Black Sea coast. It was not clear what triggered the avalanche. There had been no warning of a possible snow slide.

The Turkish avalanche occurred a day after three people were killed in an avalanche on a mountain in the Scottish Highlands.